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My parents have a whole bunch of Doonesbury collections. One week (long time ago) I went through and read all of them. I loved them! So I started reading them in the current paper to find out that whatever had happened to the cartooner, I didn't like it. Haven't read nary a Doonsbury since then.
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Back when it was free, I went through the entire online archive of Doonesbury, since the very first strip. I love that comic, and I felt like I got to know each character very well.
They don't go through permanent, life-altering changes very often, but when they do . . . Wow. I can only compare this to when Mike's first wife left him for that freak. Or maybe when Lacey got Alzheimer's and then died. Poor B.D. At least he's still got Boopsie, who's always been a rock.
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OK, he lost a leg, major life-changing thing there. But what shocked me was this: we saw his head. He has hair! Real hair! BD has never been seen without a helmet of some sort.
I was aghast. I almost didn't notice the leg...
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I can't imagine it would affect him at all as a coach. It's obvious from the variety of shapes and sizes coaches come in that personal athletic ability isn't a necessity - just knowing what it takes to get the most out of your players and team.
There's a football kicking coach (can't remember what team) who has cerebral palsy.
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I've never been floored by a Doonesbury strip before but this one -- oy.
In thirty years of Doonesbury, BD has never taken off his helmet before. The image drove home how, in seconds, war can change not only your life but who you are. I am very curious where Trudeau is headed with this one.
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Actually, I'm not really moved by the storyline - I'm way too disconnected to the Doonesury characters for it to mean much. And it also has some pretty blatant political motivation behind it.
But I am honestly curious to see how the strip handles B.D.'s adjustment. It's not just idle curiosity - for good or ill, media portrayals of disability have an impact on how audience frames disability.
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sndrake, I think you misunderstand me. I don't question that he can still be just as good a football coach as he was before. But his approach, or his attitude, or his desire, or whatever may change. And how will it affect his relationship with his players?
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I haven't read Doonesbury in years - I was a regular reader through the beginning of the strip right through the Reagan years. Unless B.D. has changed significantly, he'll probably stubbornly insist on just going ahead and doing what he always does. The members of the team might see it otherwise.
Just interested in seeing how Trudeau deals with it in the strip. There was similar interest a while back when "For Better or Worse" had a pretty good story arc with a character who used a wheelchair. Not a regular character, though.
And I don't think B.D. will be a chair user. He'll get fitted with a prosthesis pretty quickly.
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Well, Boopsie has already done a pretty good job of alienating herself from the Football fellows. wonder if the animosity will carry over to BD once he returns.
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I agree - they made a point of mentioning saving the knee joint, which vastly simplifies adjusting to a prosthesis (not that it's simple, just that much lest adjustment is required in the method of walking). I take from that he doesn't want a big story arc on BD's readjustment (or doesn't want it to focus on the physical aspects).
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I don't know about Hobbes, but I really do enjoy Doonesbury a lot. I haven't been able to follow it much in the last couple of years, because my ultraconservative local paper hides it in the middle of the classified ads (but at least they carry it!).
I enjoy the smooth combination of political commentary, regular funnies and ongoing storylines. I enjoy watching the familiar characters grow, interact and even age. For Better or For Worse is the only other strip I am familiar with that has had its characters age in real- or near real-time. It gives it a sense of reality.
I enjoy Trudeau's humor, even though I often don't agree with his politics. I admire his art, and have enjoyed watching it develop since the beginning of the strip in the early 1970's. (I didn't start reading it then, but read all the old ones after the fact).
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Ela, I thought it was a very unique perspective, and rather new way of showing the world in comics. Not to say the style has never ever been used before but... well it felt unique to me. And it connected. I guess I don't know why seeing as how I've never exactly been in combat but I guess maybe I felt that the writer meant it...
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B.D. has always been an interesting character in Doonesbury. He was one of the original two characters in the very first strip (the other being Michael Doonesbury himself). In a strip that is written by a liberal and full (naturally enough) of liberal characters, he has always remained a staunch conservative. And he isn't just a token conservative. He plays a major role, and he always speaks his mind on the issues. The rest of the characaters poke fun at him all the time, but he doesn't ever become simply a caricature of a conservative. He has too much "reality" invested in him, by virtue of his history and relationships. Even the most liberal characters love and respect him.
He always becomes a crucial figure in Doonesbury during time of war. He supported the Vietnam War. He eventually volunteered, joining the army and doing a tour in Vietnam itself. He was a prisoner of war in that conflict. He made friends with his captor, Phred, and has kept correspondence with him ever since. One of the most wrenching strips ever was some time after he returned from Vietnam, and he read the headline saying that the U.S. had finally pulled out and that the people and places he had fought to protect were being overrun by the communists. He was crushed.
He went to the Gulf during Desert Storm. He showed up to do guard duty at ground zero. And, most recently, he was shipped off to Iraq. And each time, he went willingly, and although he grumbled (as all soldiers do), he supported the causes for which he fought.
Now, to see him brought down and damaged in this fashion is quite striking. Since so much of this strip is all about the connections between the characters, at least for me, I will be very interested to see the reactions of all his friends.
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Ela, when I look at cartoons I'm either looking for A) Humor (most common) or B) A personal connection (i.e. treat it as art). I can't tell you why I like Stary Night, except that I do. I know, comparing Doonesbury to Van Gogh is a bit preposterous, and if it makes you feel better I don't think it's as good . Anyways, I felt a connection, I have to say that it did feel "unique" for a comic, and it seemed like the author was connected to his charecters. What can I say? Really those are just rationalizations and the plain fact is that I liked it.
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Hobbes, I will agree with you that Trudeau is interested in the lives of his characters.
The strip made me sad. There is nothing amusing about losing a leg, and that is why I asked what you meant when you said, "It was good."
Just to respond to comments that are certain to follow, I am sure that Trudeau didn't mean the strip to be funny; as was mentioned above, his strips often have a political agenda, or are a commentary on life in the U.S.
UofUlawguy, you are absolutely corrent in your synopsis of BD's character, and his relationships with his friends over the years. Based on past history, I am sure they will be supportive of him as a person, as they have been in the past, even though they disagree with his politics.
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Ela, I've rarely read Doonesbury. The first time I read this week's strip, I thought, "Huh. Okay..." then I thought about it for a while and came back with, "This is good."
But my "this is good" has nothing to do with humor. I just found it subtly powerful.
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Suneun, Trudeau's strips have often been subtly powerful.
One of my favorites was a commentary on the secret Cambodian bombings, back in the 70's. Phred the Terrorist takes a trip to Cambodia and meets an oriental Grant Wood couple, complete with pitchfork. When Phred asks about the secret bombings, the man says, "Secret bombings? boy, there wasn't any secret about them! Everyone here knew! I did, and my wife, she knew, too! She was with me, and I remarked on them! I said, "Look, Martha, here come the bombs." At which point his wife said, "It's true, he did."
It was just so ironic and pointed, at the time.
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quote:I was actually curious what plaid's motivation was for pointing out this particular set of strips.
1) I think anything is good to remind us that war isn't nice (regardless of which war it is).
2) I used to be a big Doonesbury fan (Ela, I liked his '70s stuff best, too). I read Doonesbury when I see it, since I'm still curious to see what's going on, but I'm usually disappointed -- his stuff has gotten more irrelevant over the years (too many jokes about modern art, shallow academics, self-referential comics humor, etc.) And he's been inconsistent with his own characters -- he can be really cynical about their motives, which is jarring after his more humane '70s stuff.
But every once in a while he does something good, and something that's significant for his characters, and that's why I posted these.
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posted
I have the CD-rom with every Doonesbury strip from the first 25 years, indexed and searchable with 'this day in history' sidebars and relevent quotes. Good stuff.
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I think it's still available. You used to be able to buy the disc on its own, but now it comes packaged with the trade paperback 'The Bundled Doonesbury'. Amazon Link.
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quote:I enjoy watching the familiar characters grow, interact and even age. For Better or For Worse is the only other strip I am familiar with that has had its characters age in real- or near real-time. It gives it a sense of reality.
The first comic in which the characters aged normally was Gasoline Alley, which has been running continually since 1919. It's pretty cool actually--over the course of the strip, characters have gone from being newborn babies to being elderly grandfathers. When I was younger I really enjoyed the strip, but I haven't gotten a paper that carried it since the late 80s, and I've never bothered to resume following it online.
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Yeah, I remember reading Gasoline Alley, and I do remember that everyone aged. But I never followed it, because I didn't like it much.
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Yes, I also remember Gasoline Alley; it doesn't run in my daily paper, but it was never one of my favorites, either.
Like UofUlawguy, I have been following For Better or Worse for years. Two others in which the characters have aged and changed, and which I also enjoy: Jumpstart, and Baby Blues.
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Noemon, don't know if you've looked at the current Gasoline Alley cartoons at the link you posted above, but it looks like one of its main characters has died...
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